Wednesday, August 6, 2008

As the road and sprawl lobby salivates over the big pie up in Portland ($4.2B, yes, that's a B, as in "beeeelions and beeeeelions"), there's a tidy little piece of sprawl pie being floated here down here in Salem too -- The Willamette River Crossing, estimated at a juicy $660M ... not bad. The construction and consulting firms hoping this gem will pay for a few BMWs are probably getting a little nervous about how closely this thing is being sliced, what with banks about to drop like flies, having only started to unravel from the real estate fiasco (which this bridge is partly about propping up--helping sprawl developers who keep pushing houses further and further out). If they can't get this thing funded soon, it will probably never, ever happen.

LOVESalem

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WORD

"Because we don't think about future generations, they will never forget us." (Henrik Tikkanen)

"Forget the damned motor car and build the cities for lovers and friends." (Lewis Mumford)Let's live on the planet as if we intend to stay

If you are thinking a year ahead, plant seeds. If you are thinking 10 years ahead, plant a tree. If you are thinking 100 years ahead, educate the people.Heroes are not giant statues framed against a red sky. They are people who say: This is my community, and it’s my responsibility to make it better. (Gov. Tom McCall)

Why This Blog?

Jan 19, 2008: LOVESalem reaches the web, bringing a vitally needed message to Oregon's capital city: We must Oregon-ize to put the needs of people before the needs of cars. This requires that we live our environmental values -- that we LOVE (Live Our Values Environmentally) Salem -- by working to stop the Sprawl Machine.

The Sprawl Machine is a ravenous beast that feeds on green space, close-in neighborhoods, and property taxes and that excretes monstrous, ugly road projects that pollute the air, increase mortality and morbidity, promote climate change, weaken families and neighborhoods, and help weaken the social fabric and civic participation.

The Sprawl Machine works by constantly luring its prey with promises that the problems created by cars can be addressed by doing more of the same -- building more lanes, more bridges, consuming ever more money. In other words, the Sprawl Machine promises that we can keep doing the same thing over and over, while expecting a different result this time.

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